


Fanged Blessings

by AstoriaColumnStaircase



Category: Not Another D&D Podcast (Podcast)
Genre: Curses, Early Apprenticeship, I really wanted to set something in Fia's traincar, The Trickster - Freeform, Werewolves, allusions to birth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-10 16:47:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28440399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AstoriaColumnStaircase/pseuds/AstoriaColumnStaircase
Summary: Fia's first assist in Bathilda's werewolf midwifery. It doesn't go well because births are scary, and we have a long cool down discussion about the nature of curses over tea and brandy.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 10





	Fanged Blessings

**Author's Note:**

> I meant to write something about hot plates but then I fell in love with Bathilda and I really needed to set something in her train cars. I made some assumptions about spells known based mostly on the list for cleric spells (because I really love playing clerics), and also because magic is awesome and it should totally flavor the surroundings. Thanks for reading!

It was more the sound than the blood. Howling, inhuman; the woman's voice shifted between guttural moans and agonized shouts. The smell of blood had dominated the train car for the last hour. The old and wavy glass windows were opaque with steam from within and the oppressive dark beyond. When the mother's teeth grew long as fingers and her new-grown claws tore splinters from the arms of the birthing chair, Fia escaped through the steel door that lead between train cars. Bathilda could manage. She'd done it a hundred times before.

Fia stood shaking on the steps. One foot hovered between the car and the gravel underneath. Bathilda did not really need her. The blade witch only made Fia an apprentice out of pity. Fia's cowardice this night had proved it.

Bukvar fluttered his pages as he hovered at her side. "Are we running, miss?" The little book twisted his ribbon bookmark around her smallest finger. He would follow her anywhere.

"No, Bukvar." Not yet. She had nowhere else to go, and if she was to be thrown out it was better for the witch to do it than for her to run away.

The father was pacing outside the train car. He was a werewolf like the mother, and his sharp canines chewed nervously at the end of a cigar. He saw her at the end of the train car and nodded, raised his cigar in salute. "How's she doing?"

Bukvar flew inside Fia's coat, but the werewolf hadn't heard him. 

"I don't know," said Fia truthfully, then "Bathilda knows what she is doing," when her answer did not seem to be enough.

"Wish I could be more help, but Bathilda said my energy was gettin' weird, and the wife told me to have a smoke." He barked out a laugh while scratching behind his shaggy pointed ears. "Didn't want to upset the missus, ya'know?"

Fia nodded, but she did not know.

"So, you're the apprentice? This your first werewolf baby?"

She winced, but there was no point in denying it. 

He placed a large hairy hand on her shoulder. "You're doing good, kid. Not many folks without the Trickster's touch are so calm around my kind." He puffed out a heavy cloud of sweet smelling smoke. "Although, when I saw those teeth, I thought you might be one of ours."

Fia's hand went instinctively to her jaw, but the werewolf laughed again. "Not to worry, little apprentice. You smell plenty human to me."

"That's some good thinking, girl." Bathilda's creaking voice echoed in Fia's mind and set her pallet tasting like pennies. The witch's words were slightly stifled, the consonants soft around the twist of copper wire that was undoubtedly clenched between her teeth. Bathilda had tried to show Fia the way to twist the wire, the proper bend to her fingers, but Fia hadn't managed to send her words through wire. Bathilda taught with her feelings, and the rigid instructions that made sense of magic must have wandered away with one of her many enchanted spell books. "It's about time to send the father in. The babe's nearly here."

"Bathilda needs your assistance," she said to the werewolf.

"Good, good. I hate being useless like this." He stubbed his cigar on the thin steel skin of the train car, smudging the faded red paint into further obscurity under soot and rust and lichen. The werewolf tucked away his stub in the breast pocket of a tatty flannel and clapped his clawed hands together. "Wish me luck?"

"I believe your wife will need it more," said Fia.

He chuckled agreeably as he loped up the steps and rounded into the train car. Such grace for a wild and enormous man.

Fia's nose wrinkled. The metallic tang was still in her head.

"You're making the face," whispered Bukvar.

Bathilda was still speaking through the wire. "I know I'll want a strong cup of tea in a moment, and I suspect the mother will want a cup with chamomile and trillium. And we'll need a basin of hot water, a good sponge; the new one, and I wouldn't say no to a snifter of peach brandy if I'm honest."

"Yes, mistruss," she said, and the tang left her. She raised a brow at Bukvar. "I don't make a face."

"Your eyes go all blank and your mouth hangs open like-" His pages hung loose from his binding as he followed her in a slack jawed mockery. Fia stomped toward the herb garden, following the stepping stones. Bathilda had placed them alongside the tracks to keep any visitors from trampling the herbs and flowers which grew profusely around the abandoned tracks.

There were three bundles of chamomile blossoms drying on the walls of the bath car, but she couldn't remember a bundle of trillium. She stepped over the healthy patch of chamomile, past the bleeding violets, careful to keep her coat from dragging against their staining petals, and onto the stone in the center of the trillium patch. She plucked one of the deep purple flowers, then pulled an entire plant up by its root, because she could not remember if root or stem or leaves were involved in trillium tea.

"Are we stealing things now?" asked Bukvar. "I bet that flying broom would fetch more in town than a handful of weeds. Or some of the potions."

"We are not stealing," said Fia. "We're not thieves."

"I could be a thief. One of those Gentleman Thieves they write romances about." He flew into Fia's coat and tossed the end over his jacket in a way that might have been dashing, if one had never been previously acquainted with the term.

"It is not romantic to steal from the woman who saved us." She yanked open the door to the bath car. It always stuck; the floor had settled a little too far inside and distorted the shape of the frame around the door.

"Do gentleman thieves start by being gentleman, or are they thieves who slowly develop a code?"

"We are making tea!" 

Bukvar halted in the doorway. "Oh. Well that's almost the opposite of running."

Fia huffed. She closed her eyes and pictured the twist of Bathilda's fingers, the language of fire, then took a smudge of charcoal from her pocket. Some time before she came to the train, Bathilda had set a massive iron stove into one corner of the car. Fia summoned a fire into its belly and smiled to herself when it sparked to life on the first try. 

The kettle was already sitting on the stove. Tea was a constant with Bathilda, and kettles kept every ready for the next cup. But the basin was empty. A massive stone tub dominated one end of the car, and the floor coved down to meet it. A reed screen tipped dangerously toward it to offer privacy to any who might chance a bath, and it was kept from crashing down by several tethers to the arched ceiling. Behind the bath, a pipe bent down through a boarded window, and Fia opened the valve to allow water from the rain barrels outside to splash into the stone basin. 

She asked once, after measuring the stone tub, the high windows, and the narrow doors, how Bathilda had managed to carry such a thing inside, and the witch had answered "one stone at a time." The whole thing was patterned with rocks of many colors and make, all melded together as if they were no more difficult to mold than biscuit dough. Brass pipes lead out from the stone, traveled along the wall, and wrapped around the iron stove to heat the water in the basin. Fia was certain that even the high queen did not bathe in as much luxury as the Blade Witch Bathilda.

Bukvar hated the place. "This steam will be the death of me."

"Gather the herbs, then," said Fia. It was as dry as tasks came in the bathing car.

Bukvar set to pulverizing dried flowers while she carved from the brick of tea.

"We. Do. Have. Trillium," he called between heavy thwacks. 

"Good. Scoop it into the--" her words frazzled as Bathilda's voice pierced her head. 

"When the water's warm, bring a bucket of it back here. We're almost there."

"Yes miss--" Fia began to answer, but the witch was already gone. Dropped the copper, most likely. 

"What's the yesmus?" 

"Infuser." She tested the water, still filling from the rain barrels outside and the induction pipes from within and found it lukewarm at best. She held the bucket under the induction pipe, then switched to the cool water to top it off and swirled it together. Perfect bathing temperature. If one could fit in a bucket. "Can you carry a bucket?"

"An empty one," said Bukvar. 

"You will hold the teacups." She held out the handles for him to loop his bookmark through.

"I hope you're not expecting saucers."

Fia gathered the bucket and kettle in one hand and kicked her way through the stuck door. "If the witch wants saucers, she will have to conjure them."

The birthing car was quiet. Fia knocked against the door before letting herself in. Bathilda took the kettle from her, and the teacups from Bukvar. The werewolves were laying together on the floor, the mother propped on pillows and blankets, the father curled around her and stroking her head. He was smiling and muttering to her, sweet encouragements, notes of pride. A baby lay on her, and Bathilda bent down to touch the newborn.

"My assistant has brought tea for you two, and a sponge to wipe this little bugger down, if you can bear to be parted for a minute."

The mother nodded, and Bathilda brought the baby to Fia. 

"I- I don't want to hurt it," said Fia.

"I'll hold the babe, you just give 'em a gentle wipe." Bathilda plunged her wrist into the bucket Fia held. "You've already got the water just right."

Fia soaked her sponge, and Bathilda held the baby out to her. It was hairier than she expected, with pointed ears and sharp teeth just poking through the gums. She wiped cautiously over the forehead, and it reached for her with tiny clawed fingers.

"I think they like you," whispered Bathilda.

Fia could not be sure, but the baby did not cry at her touch, and twice nearly opened its eyes. It was over in minutes, and Bathilda brough the child back to its mother. The father was already sipping his tea.

"We'll give you space," said Bathilda. "If you need anything, or if anything seems off, anything at all, call my name and I'll be here before you reach the third syllable."  
"Thank you," said the father, and they left the family to become acquainted.

"I am sorry I ran," said Fia when they retreated to the bathing car.

"Did you?" asked Bathilda. She was removing her stockings to soak her feet in the steaming bath, and Fia turned blushing in deference to the older woman’s modesty. "You seemed to be exactly where you needed to be. Pretty poor running, if you ask me."

“I got scared in the birthing car. I couldn’t stay with…” she hesitated, waiting for the witch to agree, the tell her to pack her things, but Bathilda only watched her curiously from behind a steaming mug of tea. “I am a poor assistant.”

“That was the first time you witnessed a birth. It’s pretty big, and I didn’t expect you to be perfect at it. That’s why you’re the assistant, Fia. I’m still here to handle the scary stuff.”

Fia nodded. Bathilda sighed. “You did well, girl. You kept working through the fear. That’s not nothing.”

“Why was the baby cursed?” Fia sat with her own teacup at the far end of the car, near enough to keep warm by the stove, and far enough to keep Bukvar from worry.

“Cursed?”

“It was just born, why should it be cursed?”

“The werewolves live out here where its dangerous, where the horrors can sneak up on a person if they’re not careful, if they’re hearing’s no good, or their noses aren’t sniffing. And the werewolves have claws and teeth which can protect them. It’s only a curse if they try to fight it. That babe is going to grow up with everything it needs to stay alive in the woods. And by the time they turn eight or nine, they’ll turn human enough to take the occasional trip into town.” She took a swig of her tea, polishing off the cup, and gestured for the brandy. “I know plenty of adults in town who can hardly say the same.”

Fia swiped the bottle of brandy off the high shelf and poured a bit of it into Bathilda’s cup. Then a bit more when the witch seemed disappointed at the level.   
Her other hand was in her pocket, rubbing against the smudge of charcoal. She felt the heat inherent within, that bit of fire locked in a lump of nothing that could be awakened with a word and gesture. “And magic?” she asked.

“What about it?”

It protected Bathilda, it gave Fia some control, it even gave her Bukvar. But it took away her only friend. She did not know if Irena had survived her flight from their little mountain village. “Is it a curse or a blessing?”

“Yes,” said Bathilda and she cackled wildly at her own joke. “The Trickster doesn’t work in curses, girl. We’re given tools, and its up to us to decide their use.” She began to unbutton her overcoat and Fia retreated quickly behind the reed screen. Soon after, the woman’s clothes were tossed to the far end of the car and a witch’s worth of water displaced onto the floor. Bukvar yelped and flapped his way to a high shelf, far from the threat but huffing as if the water might start to climb the walls. 

“I think I know why the floor is bowed,” said Fia.

“I think you might be right,” said Bathilda. “Would you like to learn how to fix it?”

“A spell?”

“Of course. The right spell is a stronger tool than a hammer.” Bathilda mused softly to herself from the bath. “We’ll begin tomorrow. It’s high time you learn a bit of mending.”

“I would like that,” said Fia. She found the mop already resting against the wall by the stove and began to push the water toward a rusted drain. It looked as though Bathilda had opened several slits in the metal floor with a knife about the same time she conjured a basin from stones.

“Would you like to join me?” Bathilda asked. “You had a long day, too.”

Fia shook her head before she remembered that she was hidden around the screen. “No, thank you.”

“I’ll keep the water warm for you after I’m done.” The fire crackled a little louder as a whiff of witch magic stoked the flames. “And clean.” She kept the kettle clean that way, drawing impurities from the water with the touch of her finger. Tea with Bathilda was better than any drink she’d ever tasted. 

“Yes,” said Fia.

“And put down that mop. You’ve worked hard enough, girl. It’s time to relax.”

“Yes, miss,” said Fia, and she set the mop against the wall. 

The night was quiet, and the werewolves only called Bathilda once to thank her again for all her help. Fia took her bath only after Bathilda left her alone in the train car with a small pamphlet on the spell for mending, and a pencil to annotate the workings of the spell. And although the forest they lived in was rife with cursed creatures, she had blessings close at hand.


End file.
